Need upgrade advice

Alright I have a max of around 600 or a little more to spend. Here's my current system info.

Intel Pentium 4, 1712 MHz
GeForce 5200FX (128MB)
1 Gig of PC 2700 RAM
MSI 645 Ultra Mobo

Do I need to buy a whole new computer or should I just upgrade?
What upgrades would make the most significant difference in gaming?

Also, the ram I have... It's 2 sticks of 256 and one stick of 512.
All three are different brands. I'm guessing that this could actually be a bad thing but I'm not sure so if someone could clarify for me that'd be great.

Oh, and if I got a new CPU could I get a decent one without having to get a new mobo or is the one I have not going to be able to support any newer decent Processors?

Thanks in advance,
Scott

 

Hmmm you could just upgrade the cpu and keep the board, from what I found out, it seemed that it could go a little further than 2ghz for the clockspeed.
However, if you want it to be good for gaming, then I'd go down the athlon 64 route, much faster and gives a better performance. Look for something along the lines of an athlon 64 3200+, you could stay with the cheaper option of going with the 754 socket or pay a bit more for the 939 socket.
You can keep the current memory that you have because most motherboards will take PC2700 ram.

Your current video card is ok, might want to upgrade to a 5900 or a 6600 if you have a little extra cash.

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?page=1&Nav=|c:1619|&Sort=0&Recs=10

you could pick one from the above link .. then spend the remaining on a video card or a PSU or whatever

IMO I would ditch your old mobo + cpu ... maybe give it to a friend or family or use it as an extra PC if you have the parts

 

Are you just upgrading for the sake of upgrading or is there some game(s) in particular that don't play well? I would just upgrade your video card to something kick butt like the Geforce 6800. That way, you can at a later date upgrade the whole machine and put the 6800 in it and restore the older one and sell it or just have two computers. It doesn't really make sense to spend 600 bucks on an upgrade because you will be improving the performance marginally (a few hundred Mhz). If you want a killer machine, sell this one as is and use that money and the 600 to build another. Your machine looks pretty good and it should play all new games sufficiently well. Unless you need more power because something isn't running well, save the money and spend it when you can afford another whole machine.

The problems you will run into upgrading are that the new parts that you buy for this old machine will not be compatible with newer machines: ATA vs SATA, PCI-Express vs AGP, PCxxxx vs PC2xxxx ram. IMHO upgrading a machine like yours at this time in computer history is not practical.